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HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 


HOW THE WORLD GREW UP 

The Story of Anthropology 

RACES OF MEN 

The Story of Ethnology 

HOW THE WORLD SUPPORTS MAN 

The Story of Human Geography 

MAN AND HIS RECORDS 

The Story of Writing 

THE TONGUES OF MAN 

The Story of Languages 

MAN AND HIS CUSTOMS 

The Story of Folkways 

HOW THE WORLD IS RULED 

The Story of Government 

MAN AND HIS RICHES 

The Story of Economics 

THIS MAN-MADE WORLD 

The Story of Inventions 


Thomas S. Rockwell Company 
Publishers 
CHICAGO 











Publishers’ Note 


This book presents in popular form the 
present state of science. It has been reviewed 
by a specialist in this field of knowledge. An 
excerpt from this review follows: 

u l thin\ that the young readers 
will enjoy this boo\. The develop¬ 
ment of society is more important 
for them than for the older genera¬ 
tion and these pages present it in an 
attractive way.” 


Signed: Ellsworth Faris 

Chairman, Department of Sociology 
The University of Chicago 







After the Middle Ages sailors began making long 
voyages and finding new lands 















/ 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 

By 

J: V. Nash 

Drawings by 
Richard S. Rodgers v 



THOMAS S. ROCKWELL COMPANY 

CHICAGO 

1931 



\ 


cy 


Copyright, 1931, by 


/ 


THOMAS S. ROCKWELL CO. 


CHICAGO 


6 


Printed in United States of America 


SEP 18 

©CIA 40591 


IS3) 

c ) 



CONTENTS 

I How People First Lived Together 11 

Why do people live together? Have men always 
lived together? Who was the leader? What is a 
tribe? Were there any laws in the tribe? What 
are taboos? How did taboos begin? What is a 
fetish? What was magic? What did the medicine¬ 
man do? What were the first gods? Were there 
any schools? How was the chief selected? Was 
the chiefs son always the next chief? Did people 
own things? Did they have wars? Were all 
people equal? 

II How People Became Civilized 27 

How did early people make a living? Did they 
raise animals for food? What tools did they use? 

What other things did they make? What were 
homes like? Were there any cities or towns? 

Were there whole nations of people? Did all men 
do the same things? How did they trade? Did 
people use money? How did coins come to be 
used? What were fairs? 

III Life in Ancient Greece 39 

Were there tribes in Greece? Did the Greeks have 
kings? Who ruled the Greeks? Was the family 
important? Did they use money? What were the 
Olympic games? What did war do to the Greeks? 

IV Life in the Middle Ages 47 

What were the “Middle Ages?” Who ruled 
Rome? What happened to Rome? How did 
people live in the Middle Ages? Who were the 
serfs? Was there much trade? What were the 
people’s homes like? Was the work divided up? 

What did the guilds do? What were the cities like? 

V How the Modern World Was Born 56 

Why was the invention of gunpowder important? 

What was the Renaissance? Were there books to 
read? What did books do for people? What 
made trade grow? How did we get the steam 


engine? What did steam power do for man? 

What did factories do for the cities? What prob¬ 
lems came with the factories? Are all factories 
like the old ones? 

VI Some of the Groups in the World Today 65 

What is a group? What do political groups do? 

How does the nation help us? Do we know 
more about each other now? Does trade bring 
people together? What are some of the other 
groups? Are there groups for young people? 

VII The Home, the School, and Play 73 

What is the center of life? Does the family do 
everything for itself? Why has the family gone 
on? Was the family important in America? 

What built up our nation? How did families 
meet? Are families as large now? Where do 
they live? Is the family just as important now? 

What is taught in the family? Why should people 
learn to read and write? Who pays for schools? 

Is playing wasting time? What good are games? 

Are there many chances to play? What has play 
to do with bad habits? Do study and play go 
together? 

VIII How the People Make Their Own Laws 90 

Have there always been laws? Who made the 
laws? What did laws do for the Romans? What 
was the beginning of the English languge? How 
did the United States begin? Who makes our 
laws? What do the states do? How does a law 
start? What does a committee do? How are 
bills changed? What does the Senate do? How 
does the bill become a law? What is a veto? Are 
all laws made the same way? 

IX Other Rules That Tell Us How to Act 105 

Are laws the only rules we have? What are cus¬ 
toms? What are fashions? What is public 
opinion? 

X What the Crowd and the Group Do 109 

How do crowds act? Why do crowds act as they 
do? What is a gang? What is patriotism? 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Sailors began making long voyages (frontispiece) 

Taboos forbade people to do things 17 

The bravest man became chief 23 

First farming was done with a hoe 29 

Barter was an exchange of goods 35 

Wise men of Athens gathered young fol\ about them 43 
Rome grew to be “mistress of the world” 49 

The landlord protected the serfs 52 

fames Watt made a discovery 59 

A boy gets a thrill when his team wins 64 

In early times men lived on their own little farms 69 
Families went out into the great west 77 

Family love is a guiding force 82 

Teamwor\ teaches us to play well 87 

Parliament won the fight for self-government 94 

When the Legislature meets 99 

Religion is one of the social forces 105 

Group influence can do great good 110 



Chapter I 


HOW PEOPLE FIRST LIVED 
TOGETHER 

N OBODY wants to live all by himself— 
unless he is very queer. Anyway, how 
could he, unless he went off to some desert 
island? And he would probably be so unhappy 
there that he would soon want to come back. 
The worst thing that can be done to a person 
is to make him live all alone in a cell. 

Even many animals live in flocks or herds 
or packs, helping one another in time of danger 
and finding pleasure in each other’s company. 

From the very earliest days of his life on 
earth, man has been like that. We say that 
he is “a social creature.” By this, we mean that 
he has always lived with others of his kind. 
If this had not been so, he could not have 
escaped the terrible dangers he was always 


Why do people 
live together? 


11 


12 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Have men 
always lived 
together? 


facing in the days before men had powerful 
weapons and safe homes. It was only by 
staying together with his fellow men that he 
could fight off the wild beasts—the mammoth, 
the bear, the wolf, and the saber-toothed tiger. 
And the men had to be always on guard so 
the women and children could be safe. 

The women and children did their part, too, 
in the work of the little group. While the 
men were busy fighting savage beasts and 
hunting other animals for food, the women 
and children took care of the home, which 
might be in a large cave. They gathered wood 
to keep the fire burning, they cooked the meat, 
they carried off the waste matter, they brought 
water from the river, and they made the cave 
cozy and comfortable. 

In those days people had a hard struggle to 
keep alive at all. If each one had been selfish, 
thinking only of himself, he soon would have 
died. It was only by each one helping the 
others at all times and in every possible way 


HOW PEOPLE FIRST LIVED TOGETHER 13 


that the little group could hold its own against 
storm and drought and floods, against fierce 
animals, and against other people who tried to 
take their caves and hunting grounds. 

So it was that the group in which the 
members helped each other the most became 
the strongest and enjoyed most of the good 
things of life. The children were able to get 
a better start in making their living. The group 
was usually made up of a few families, and 
in each family the father was the head. 

The leader of the group was some wise old 
man. Everybody respected him a great deal. 
They also respected all the older people. And 
when these old folk died they were not 
forgotten. They could no longer be seen, of 
course, but everyone thought they were still 
living, in the land of spirits, and could help 
the group in different ways. So they still 
honored them. This respect for the dead in 
some tribes led to ancestor worship. 

The family is the oldest human group the 


Who was 
the leader? 


14 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What is 
a tribe? 


world has ever known. There have been 
families as long as people have been on earth, 
and that is hundreds of thousands of years. 

Even among animals and birds we may find 
groups that are much like human families. 
The father hunts for food and fights off ene¬ 
mies, while the mother stays at home and looks 
after the little ones until they have learned to 
get their own food and are big enough to take 
care of themselves. 

The family in those days was larger than our 
families today. There would be many children, 
and also perhaps the old grandparents, as well 
as uncles and aunts. There were usually a few 
such families living near each other, each 
helping the others in time of danger, and the 
men joining in the hunt. 

Finally, the group would be made up of 
quite a number of such families. It was then 
called a tribe. The families in the tribe were 
related to each other, but not so closely as 
before. A tribe sometimes was named after 


HOW PEOPLE FIRST LIVED TOGETHER 15 


some totem . The totem was a certain animal, 
perhaps a turtle, a bear, a beaver, or a buffalo. 
This animal was supposed to protect the tribe, 
and everybody in the tribe thought a great 
deal of the tribe’s totem. Sometimes it was 
a plant. The tribe was called by the name 
of its totem. 

Now the tribe did not have the kind of gov¬ 
ernment that we have in our country. Neither 
were there any written laws, or courts and po¬ 
licemen to make people obey them. 

How could people manage to live together 
in peace without laws? Well, they had some¬ 
thing just as good for the sort of life they lived. 
They had customs, or folkways, just as we do 
and they had rules against doing certain things, 
these rules being called in one language taboos . 
Everybody followed the folkways in his daily 
life and carefully obeyed the taboos. 

But if a person broke these customs and rules, 
he was not put in prison, for there were no 
prisons. But something worse was done to 


Were there 
any laws in 
the tribe? 


16 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What are 
taboos? 


him—he was made an outlaw. People would 
refuse to have anything to do with him, and 
he was cast out of the tribe. He might even 
be killed. It was a terrible punishment to be 
put out of the tribe, because a person in those 
days just had to belong to some tribe. He 
couldn’t live all alone, because the dangers were 
so great. So nobody wanted to become an 
outlaw, and everybody took good care to respect 
the tribal customs and taboos. 

These customs and taboos, as we have just 
said, were not written out for every member 
of the tribe to read them. Writing had not 
been invented in those early days. But they 
were handed down, by the older people telling 
the younger ones. 

The taboos, or rules against doing certain 
acts or touching forbidden things, were very 
important, so let us look at them a little closer. 
We have all heard this word taboo . We say 
that something is taboo when we mean that it 
is forbidden, that people must not do it. Now 


HOW PEOPLE FIRST LIVED TOGETHER 17 

tribes of people all over the world have had 
taboos. But the word itself comes from the 
South Sea Islands, and means marked off or 
forbidden . It was a warning that there was 
danger in touching or handling the thing 
marked off. 

We have customs somewhat like taboos. For How did 
instance, we do not eat snakes or wolves. The taboos be & tn? 
notion of taboos also is something like what 
happens among us when a person gets a disease 
that is “catching,” such as diphtheria or scarlet 
fever. The Health Department puts a card 
on the front door to warn people away. 

Poisonous plants also were taboo. In the same 
way, to protect the growing crops, the crops 
were put under a taboo until they were ripe, and 
the head man of the tribe—called the chief— 
tasted them. Sometimes the reason for the 
taboo, after a great many years had passed, was 
forgotten, and some taboos seem to us now 
very queer. 

Taboo was a part of the religion of these 




Taboos forbade 
people to do 
certain things 







18 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What is a 
fetish? 


What was 
magic? 




early people. They did not at first have gods, 
but some tribes thought there was a great power 
called mana, and that this mana might go to 
live in all sorts of things, such as a rock, a 
stick of wood, a tool, a pebble, a piece of bone, 
and so on. Other tribes had charms, called 
fetishes . People believed that the fetishes would 
help them, and bring them good luck. 

Another part of the tribe’s religion was 
magic . By magic we mean certain acts that 
people thought would make things they 
wanted happen. We use the word magic 
today when a man takes a rabbit out of a hat 
that we were sure was empty, and we cannot 
tell where the rabbit came from. Of course 
we know that the man has just played a trick 
on us, that he has fooled us. But the people 
who lived in tribes really believed in magic. 

The man who was most clever in doing the 
magical acts in those days was called in some 
tribes a medicine-man. When the tribe needed 
a good supply of game or fish, or rain to water 


HOW PEOPLE FIRST LIVED TOGETHER 19 


the crops, or victory in warfare, the medicine¬ 
man would be often called in to do his magic, 
with other men helping him. 

If the weather was very dry, the medicine¬ 
man would speak some strange words, called 
a spell, and perhaps shake a rattle. Or great 
fires might be built, from which black smoke 
would rise, which looked like rain clouds. If 
a good crop of melons was wanted, then stones 
shaped like melons would be scattered on the 
ground. If fish were scarce, then a number 
of men would go to the river bank, one of 
them would jump into the water and the 
others would catch him and pull him to shore, 
as if he were a fish. 

All this sounds very strange, does it not? 
But that was the way those early men were 
trying to get food, so as to make life more 
comfortable. After many centuries people be¬ 
gan to see that trying to get things by magic 
was useless. They saw that nature was ruled 
by great laws, and that it was by knowing 


What did the 
medicine-man 
do? 


20 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What were the 
first gods? 


about these laws that they could get all sorts 
of good things. That was how science was 
born. Then, when people wanted the soil to 
grow a good crop, they put plant food, called 
fertilizer, of the right kind, into the ground, 
instead of trying to make magic do the job. 

Then, too, after a while these early men 
gave up using fetishes. They began to wor¬ 
ship gods of different kinds, such as the sun 
god, the moon god, the sky god, the god of 
war, the god of the chase, the god of love, 
and the god of the home. They believed that 
these gods lived up in the clouds or on moun¬ 
tains. Some of them were supposed to be like 
men, and some like women. The people 
built temples in which these gods were wor¬ 
shiped. The gods were not all good; some 
of them were cruel and wicked. It was not 
until a long, long time later that people began 
to worship just one God. 

But there were many other customs among 
the folk who lived in tribes that were very in- 


HOW PEOPLE FIRST LIVED TOGETHER 21 


teresting. Let us look at some of them. When 
the time came for a young man to get married, 
he sometimes had to choose a wife from another 
tribe, and then the girl was taken into her 
husband’s tribe. There were all kinds of 
different marriage customs. For instance, a 
young man who wanted to marry a certain 
girl might kill a deer and lay it with a heap of 
firewood at the door of the hut where she lived 
with her parents. This would be just like 
saying that he was a good hunter and well 
able to get food for his family and make a 
fine, warm home. Then, if the girl and her 
parents liked the young man, there would be 
a grand celebration, with feasting and merry¬ 
making. 

Of course, there were no schools such as Were there 
children go to nowadays. But the children of an y schools? 
the tribe were carefully taught all the customs 
and taboos. Every boy had to learn a great 
many things, so that when he grew up he 
could be a leader of the tribe. The world was 


22 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


How was the 
chief selected? 


full of dangers in those days, and a hunter had 
to have sharp eyes and ears, be able to run 
fast, and know how to kill animals. 

When a boy reached a certain age, he was 
taught all these things, and then he had to 
go through a testing time. He was made to 
do all sorts of things to show that he was 
strong and brave and had quick wits. He 
often had to stand terrible pain without making 
any sound. If he passed through all these 
tests, then he became one of the men of the 
tribe. If he failed, he was disgraced, and 
had to go and live with the women. 

As we have seen, the head man of the tribe 
was called the chief . The chief was usually 
some wise, strong man, the man best able to 
lead the tribe at all times. Such a man would 
generally have many sons. When the chief 
began to get old and feeble he would train his 
oldest son to take his place. So the son, as 
time went on, would take his father’s place 
more and more. Then, when the old chief 


HOW PEOPLE FIRST LIVED TOGETHER 23 


died, the son would have his father’s place. 

But it might sometimes happen that the 
chief’s oldest son was weak or stupid. Then 
the men of the tribe would not want him to 
be chief. They might give the place to an¬ 
other of the chief’s sons, or to somebody else 
who seemed to them to be the right man to 
lead the tribe. Some of the Indian tribes, 
when a new chief was needed, would pick out 
the man who could lift the biggest tree on his 
shoulders and carry it the farthest. And some¬ 
times when war broke out another man would 
be picked out, as a war chief, to lead the tribe 
in battle. 

The chief ruled the tribe, but there was 
generally a council made up of the strong and 
wise men of the group. This council would 
meet around the camp-fire from time to time 
and talk over the affairs of the tribe with the 
chief, deciding what was best to do. 

The tribe held in common most of the 
things that were needed in life. That is to 


The strongest or 
bravest man in 
the tribe became 
chief 


Was the chiefs 
son always the 
next chief? 






24 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Did people 
own things'? 


say, each person did not own a lot of things 
all by himself. The land used for hunting 
and fishing was free to all. Everybody had the 
same right to use it. But when a hunter shot 
a deer or some other animal with his bow and 
arrow, then the meat belonged to him for the 
use of his family. 

On the whole, these people who lived in 
tribes got along together very peacefully. There 
were many festivals at which the people used 
to dance and sing together. The children, 
too, had their games. Like children in all 
times, they spent a lot of time in play. The 
boys played at hunting and war, and the girls 
played with dolls and keeping house. In this 
way they learned to do the things they would 
have to do when they grew up. 

Sometimes a number of tribes would join 
together. When there were more men, they 
could defend themselves better and win vic¬ 
tories in war more easily. This was a very 
important step, because in that way a group of 


HOW PEOPLE FIRST LIVED TOGETHER 25 


tribes would begin to think of themselves as 
belonging together. So it was that we began 
to have nations . 

It is believed that some of the rich tribes 
came to want men to work in their fields and 
tried to force the men of the poor, weak tribes 
to work for them. When they could not get 
enough workers they made war and captured 
men and women and forced them to work. 

From this custom came slavery, which lasted 
for thousands of years. Finally, men captured 
in war were no longer made slaves. But 
Negroes were taken from their homes in 
Africa and made to work in America, during 
the early days, as slaves. That was how there 
was slavery even in America for a long time. 
But everybody now sees that slavery was wrong, 
that people should not make others work for 
nothing. 

Slavery changed greatly the lives of the 
people in the old days. At first, all the mem¬ 
bers of the tribe were free and equal. But 


Did they 
have wars? 


26 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Were all 
people equal? 


when slaves were taken into the tribe, then 
there were different classes of people. As time 
went on, there came to be three great classes 
of people in each country. There were noble¬ 
men, freemen, and slaves. Also, things were 
not owned by the whole group quite so much 
as before. 

The noblemen were the leaders in war. 
They owned many slaves. They put the slaves 
to work raising crops and working in other 
ways for their masters. So the noblemen did 
not have to work much—they had a great deal 
of free time. And by having many slaves 
working for them, they became rich. 

From very early times ordinary people did 
not have to work all the time raising food. 
Some of them did special kinds of work. One 
would become a carpenter, another a metal¬ 
worker, another a stone-cutter, and so on. This 
is called the division of labor. It changed 
greatly the way people live together. 


Chapter II 


HOW PEOPLE BECAME CIVILIZED 

E ARLY men got most of their food by 
hunting and fishing. But they did not 
want to eat only meat and fish all the time. 
They went through the woods and fields look¬ 
ing for berries, grains, and nuts. Sometimes 
they were scarce. Then they found out that 
they could grow their own wheat plants. Per¬ 
haps they saw that plants grew more plentifully 
near deserted camp grounds. Or perhaps at 
some time their supply of stored seeds had be¬ 
come wet and sprouted, and when they had 
thrown them out they saw that each seed be¬ 
came a tiny plant which later gave them more 
seeds. After many such accidental plantings 
and harvests they came to realize that they could 
raise these plants where they wanted to and 
did not need to depend on wild seeds. 


How did early 
people ma\e 
a living? 


27 


28 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Did they raise 
animals for food? 


Some tribes, too, especially in the Old 
World, when wild game became scarce, 
learned how to raise cattle and sheep so that 
there would always be a good supply of meat. 
But they had to keep moving from place to 
place in order to find good pastures. 

Of course, when people lived chiefly by 
hunting or keeping flocks and herds, the tribes 
were rather small in numbers, because it took 
a whole lot of land to give even one family 
hunting grounds and pastures large enough for 
its needs. 

And other men settled down in one place, 
planting large crops, so that more people could 
live together comfortably on much less land. 
So it was that more and more people took to 
farming. 

The first kind of farming was done with a 
hoe. The hoe is a little tool worked by one 
man. It lightly scrapes the surface of the 
ground, so that seeds can be planted and crops 
raised. The tribes which, like the American 


HOW PEOPLE BECAME CIVILIZED 29 

Indians and the South Sea Islanders, lived 
partly by hunting and fishing and partly by 
farming used the hoe. Some tribes in Africa 
lived partly by raising cattle and partly by 
farming with the hoe. 

Another way of farming, on very fertile 
land, is with the tool known as a spade, a 
sharp flat tool with a handle, used for digging. 
The spade is very useful for raising vegetables 
in little gardens. It has been used a great deal 
in China, where hundreds of millions of peo¬ 
ple are crowded together in one country. 

The next step in farming came when some¬ 
body invented a plow. The plow is an iron 
or wooden tool guided by a man and drawn 
by a horse or an ox, or even a man. It turns 
up the soil more easily than does the hoe, so 
that large fields can be made ready for sowing. 

Man continued inventing other things that 
helped make life more comfortable. He made 
tools for shaping stone, carving wood, and 
working metals such as gold and silver, 



The first \ind of farming 
was done with a hoe 


30 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What other 
things did 
they ma\e? 


copper and iron. He learned how to make 
pottery, boats, baskets, and cloth. The dis¬ 
covery of how to make cloth enabled people 
to have real clothes instead of having to wear 
skins. In making cloth they first had to spin 
thread from fibers of wool or flax. Then the 
thread had to be woven. The women did this 
work in some tribes, the men in others. It was 
very slow and took a long time. 

Another great discovery that made a great 
difference in the way people lived was writing. 
Nowadays writing seems very easy, but when 
man was first learning how to do it, he had 
all kinds of trouble. You see he had nobody 
to teach him! He had to begin first by 
making pictures. But after he could write 
enough to make his meaning clear, it helped 
him in many ways. He could send messages 
to people far away by writing them a letter. 
And people could write down things that they 
needed to remember. Books could be written, 
and so people could learn more things. 


HOW PEOPLE BECAME CIVILIZED 


31 


Long before, people had learned to make 
themselves better homes. At first, as we have 
seen, they huddled together in dark caves. 
Then they began to build huts of logs, covered 
with earth to keep them warm. Those who 
lived on the open plains, tending flocks and 
herds, built tents by setting up a wooden 
framework and covering it with skins or felt. 
You can see how easy it would be to take down 
these houses when the tribe moved on in order 
to find new pastures for the animals. 

Those American Indians who hunted buffalo 
on the plains used curious tents called wig¬ 
wams. These wigwams could be taken apart, 
carried off to another place, and set up again. 
They were made by taking long poles and 
standing them in a circle, drawing the ends 
together at the top. Then they stretched over 
these poles the bark of trees or buffalo skins. 
Other tribes, in Europe, built their houses 
on wooden platforms out on the water of lakes, 
some distance from the shore. This served as 


What were 
homes li\e? 


32 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Were there 
any cities or 
towns? 


a protection from their enemies. The wooden 
platforms rested on stout logs driven into the 
mud under the water. 

When people began to be more civilized, 
they built real houses of brick or wood and 
stone. These houses might have a number of 
rooms and last as long as our houses do. 

From very early times, huts and houses were 
usually built close together. One reason was 
that, as we know, people like to be near each 
other. Then, too, when a number of huts or 
houses were not far apart, the people living in 
them could easily and quickly get together to 
defend themselves. When they became civil¬ 
ized they often built a high, thick wall around 
the group of houses. Besides this, they might 
dig a ditch around the wall and fill it with 
water. Then their enemies would have a very 
hard time attacking them. 

These groups of dwellings came to be known 
as towns. They were just a group of huts or 
houses built near each other. Towns made 


HOW PEOPLE BECAME CIVILIZED 


33 


another great change in the way people lived 
together. Of course, there could not be towns 
until men had learned how to raise crops on 
the land and did not have to move about. 

After a great many towns had grown up in 
a country where the people all spoke the same 
language and belonged to the same race, and 
where they had other things in common, they 
would often join together and make a nation, 
sometimes ruled by a king. There were king¬ 
doms among people who were still a long way 
from being really civilized. Some nations held 
a great many people and their towns were 
very large. 

The coming of nations, however, was an 
important step in human progress. But some 
peoples lagged behind others. There were 
great nations, like Egypt, with splendid civiliza¬ 
tions thousands of years ago. On the other 
hand, at the present time there are large groups 
of tribes in different parts of the earth that have 
never gone on and become nations. 


Were there 
whole nations 
of people? 


34 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Did all men do 
the same things? 


Of course, when so many thousands of peo¬ 
ple were living together in one town, they had 
to be doing many different kinds of work. In 
other words, there was division of labor. 

This is how it happened: Suppose there 
were 10,000 people living together in a town. 
Instead of each family making its own shoes, 
it would be much better to have a number of 
men in the town do nothing but make shoes. 
By giving all their time and attention to that 
job, they would become more skillful and could 
make better shoes than could be made by peo¬ 
ple who had to do other things, too. But of 
course these men who did nothing but make 
shoes would soon have more than they could 
use for their own families. So they would 
exchange some of the shoes for other things 
which they needed, such as food and clothing, 
which were raised or made by other people. 

This was trade. At first it went on in a 
small way. Each man simply exchanged the 
things that he made for things that other men 


HOW PEOPLE BECAME CIVILIZED 


35 


made. A man would do the work that he 
knew best how to do, and so became more and 
more skillful in doing that work. 

Then trade began to spread out. The peo¬ 
ple in one place would start exchanging 
things that were made in their town for things 
that were made in some other town but not 
in theirs. Perhaps there was a silver mine near 
one town, so that the people there could get 
lots of silver and make beautiful things out of 
it. The people in other towns, far away, 
where there was no silver, would want some 
of these pretty silver ornaments, and so they 
would offer to give other things for them. It 
was by this trading between different places 
that the people of one town would begin to get 
well acquainted with those of another town. 

This exchange of goods, called barter, went 
on for a long time. But barter, after all, was 
a troublesome way of doing business. For if 
a man had only shoes to sell, and a pair of 
shoes was worth twenty times as much as a 


Barter was an 
exchange 
of goods 


How did 
they trade? 























36 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Did people 
use money? 


loaf of bread, how in the world could he buy 
a loaf of bread when he needed it? He could 
not very well cut off one-twentieth part of a 
pair of shoes. 

But very early there arose the idea of money. 
At first, let us say, shells were used, because 
a heap of shells could easily be divided up 
into any amount, large or small. Then the 
man who sold shoes would take a certain 
number of shells in exchange, and when he 
wanted a loaf of bread he would go to the 
baker and buy it with a few shells. 

Even in our own times, shells are used as 
money by the people of islands in the Pacific 
Ocean. 

Many other objects were used as money, 
but the best money is metal, such as gold and 
silver and copper. Little round pieces of these 
metals were made, and everybody was glad to 
get them. They were stamped so as to show 
that they were good metal and of the right 
weight. They were called coins. 


HOW PEOPLE BECAME CIVILIZED 


37 


These coins were much more valuable than 
shells, and they were smaller and easier to 
carry around. Besides, one couldn’t break 
them the way one could shells. Then, too, 
coins could be counted out into any sum 
wanted. Gold was worth more than silver, 
and silver more than copper. A little gold was 
worth much copper. Thus big sums would 
be paid in gold, and small sums in copper. 
Ten dollars in gold would be one small coin, 
easy to carry, but in copper it would be hun¬ 
dreds of coins, very heavy and hard to carry. 
Five cents in gold would be so tiny an amount 
that you could scarcely see it, but five cents in 
copper would be an amount large enough not 
to get lost easily. That was why the most 
valuable coins were of gold and the least 
valuable of copper, with silver in between. 

Now the man who wanted to buy a pair of 
shoes would take some coin, probably of silver, 
to the shoemaker and get his pair of shoes. 
And the shoemaker, when he wanted a loaf of 


How did 
coins come 
to be used? 


38 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What were 
fairs? 


bread, would take a few copper coins to the 
baker, hand them to him, and take home a 
loaf of bread. 

However, a good deal of business was still 
done by barter. In some places great fairs 
were held. These fairs were meeting places 
to which people came from distant places and 
exchanged their goods. And when trade be¬ 
tween different countries began, it was carried 
on by means of barter. A ship would sail with 
a load of wool, perhaps, and when it reached 
the other country, the wool would be traded for 
iron or lumber. 

By means of trade, the people in each country 
could get many things that they could not raise 
or make in their own country. And by trading 
with distant people, they got better acquainted 
with them. By knowing other people, we learn 
to like them. Charles Lamb, a famous English 
writer, once said that the reason he didn’t like 
a certain man was because he didn’t really 
know him. 


Chapter III 


LIFE IN ANCIENT GREECE 

C ENTURIES ago, a wonderful people lived 
in a beautiful land on the shores of the 
Mediterranean Sea. These people were the 
Greeks. Their country was called Hellas or 
Greece. 

The Greeks worked out a way of living to¬ 
gether that was very different from life in the 
tribe or in a large country ruled by a king. 

In Greece each city was a little nation in 
itself. That seems rather strange, does it not? 
There were quite a number of cities in Greece. 
We will take a peep at Athens, because that 
was the finest of them all. Let us imagine 
that we are back in about the year 400 b. c. 

Greece was a peninsula; that is, a country 
almost surrounded by water. Its coast line was 
dented with bays and gulfs, and there were 


Were there 
tribes in Greece? 


39 


40 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Did the Greeks 
have things? 


many beautiful islands off the coast. The 
climate was warm and sunny. Athens lay 
in a part of the country called Attica, on the 
eastern side of the peninsula, quite near the sea. 

Now Athens, like other Greek cities of that 
time, was a little nation all by itself, though it 
had no king. It was a democracy, but not like 
the United States, because all citizens met to¬ 
gether. All of these Greek cities ruled them¬ 
selves. But sometimes they joined together in a 
league, generally for protection. 

In Athens all the citizens were equal, with 
the same rights. But not all the people who 
lived in Athens were citizens. In order to be 
a citizen, a man had to have forefathers who 
also had been citizens of Athens for a long 
time in the past. No outsiders who had come 
to Athens to make their home, or the children 
of any such, could be citizens. And below 
these outsiders there were crowds of slaves who 
did all the hard work. But the slaves were not 
always treated cruelly. Many of them were 


LIFE IN ANCIENT GREECE 


41 


skillful workers in the crafts, and they lived 
comfortably. The outsiders were also able to 
live happily. They made much money in trade. 
Often they had fine houses, better perhaps than 
those of some of the citizens. And they could 
do practically everything a citizen could do 
except vote and hold a political job. However, 
only citizens could actually own land. 

All the citizens were supposed to meet to¬ 
gether in a great assembly. In this meeting any 
citizen had the right to speak and to vote on 
any question that was being talked about. As 
there were some thousands of citizens, of course 
it was a very large meeting. 

In fact, this assembly was too large to rule 
the country. So the citizens selected by lot 
some of their number to be members of a 
council of 500 men, who looked after things 
and who served as judges in the law-courts. 
Then there was a little group of ten generals, 
picked from the citizens, to lead in war. 

The citizens of Athens did very little work 


Who ruled 
the Greeks? 


42 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Was the 

family important? 


of any kind except helping to govern the city. 
Each citizen had, on the average, five slaves 
working for him. 

Here again, just as among those early tribes 
we have learned about, we find the family the 
very heart of the life of people in ancient 
Athens. The father was the head of the house, 
as he was in the tribes, and all the members 
of the family had to obey him. He could be 
cruel if he wanted to, but very few fathers 
were. Most of them were kind to their fam¬ 
ilies, just as they are today. 

One great difference between the people who 
lived in tribes and the people of these old 
Greek cities like Athens was that the people 
of Greece did not have to depend upon cus¬ 
toms and taboos to tell them what to do or 
what not to do. They also had written laws. 
And when there were quarrels between grown¬ 
up people, they would take the matter to court 
and the judges would decide. 

There was a great deal of trade between 



Wise men of Athens gathered young ]ol\ about them 
in order to tell them of (, the good life” 


43 












































44 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Did they 
use money? 


Athens and other Greek cities, and even with 
distant countries. They had money, too, which 
was similar to ours. The Greek gold and sil¬ 
ver coins were very beautiful. 

Athens was a lovely city, so lovely that it 
was called “the city of the violet crown.” The 
climate was warm, but not too hot, so that the 
people could spend a great deal of their time 
out of doors. They had fine houses of stone, 
which were comfortable, with pleasant court¬ 
yards in which the children could play. On 
the top of a high hill stood the most splendid 
temple ever built in the world. It was made 
of pure white marble and was called the Par¬ 
thenon. And not far away rolled the sea. 

As we have just seen, the climate in Athens 
was so pleasant that the people liked to be out 
of doors as much as possible. They had many 
open-air theaters, built something like our foot¬ 
ball stadiums. 

Greek people were very fond of games, 
sports, and physical exercise of all kinds. They 


LIFE IN ANCIENT GREECE 


45 


believed that a fine, healthy body helped to 
make life really worth while. From time to 
time great athletic meets were held, called 
Olympic games, in which young men from all 
over Greece would take part in foot races, throw¬ 
ing the javelin and the discus (a round piece 
of metal), and other contests. 

Then there were many holidays in honor 
of the gods. On those days the people stopped 
work and thronged to the temples. There were 
joyful processions in which the people sang 
and scattered flowers. 

There were many very wise men in Athens, 
called philosophers, who used to gather young 
folk about them in the shade of some porch and 
teach them what one must do in order to live 
“the good life.” One of the wisest of these 
men was named Socrates. 

The people of Athens loved their city dearly. 
They were patriots. When an enemy tried to 
attack the city, the young men all rushed to 
defend it. Again and again, though so few, 


What were the 
Olympic games? 


46 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What did war 
do to the 
Greeks? 


the Greeks held back great armies of enemies, 
sometimes from far-off countries like Persia. 
At a place called Marathon and at another 
place called Thermopylae they showed such 
bravery that these places are still famous in 
history. These young Greeks were great he¬ 
roes. They saved not only Greece but Europe 
as well from slavery to cruel tyrants in Asia. 

On the whole, the people of Athens and these 
other Greek cities led very happy lives, at least 
in times of peace. But these cities quarreled 
and fought each other till many thousands of 
their young men were killed. So it was that 
Athens and the other cities of Greece grew 
weaker and weaker. 

Then came a time when a mighty soldier 
named Alexander swept Athens and her sister 
cities into an empire. Still later, these beautiful 
cities were ruled by a powerful city in Italy, 
called Rome, whose rulers sent conquering 
armies everywhere. 


Chapter IV 


LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

T>ETWEEN the end of the Roman Empire 
and the discovery of America are several 
centuries which we now call “the Middle Ages.” 
It was one of the most interesting times in his¬ 
tory, for things were happening then that led 
on to the kind of world that we see about us 
today. There were real people, just like us in 
many ways, during the Middle Ages. 

Now let us see how the Middle Ages came 
about. You will remember that wonderful city 
in ancient Italy called Rome. It began as a 
small town, but soon it began to grow large 
and strong. Soon it ruled all Italy. The Ro¬ 
mans were a mighty people, with a strong army 
and able men as rulers. So Rome went on 
growing and growing. Then a very great 
man arose. His name was Julius Caesar. He 


What were the 
“Middle Ages?” 


47 


48 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Who ruled 
Rome? 


led the Roman armies to victory in distant lands. 
At last Rome was “the mistress of the world.” 
The city of Rome was the capital of a great 
empire. 

From early days there had been in Rome a 
council of older men (the Senate) and two men 
(Consuls) who ruled the country. The Con¬ 
suls were chosen and held their office for a year. 
Rome began as a kind of republic. But Rome 
grew into an empire, and the ruler was a 
man known as the Emperor. He was power¬ 
ful. He could do almost anything he wanted 
to do. When he died, his son or some other 
person became the next Emperor. 

Then the people did not have so much free¬ 
dom as they did before. More and more of 
them were slaves; and some of the Emperors, 
like Nero, were terribly wicked and cruel. 

The Roman Empire lasted more than 300 
years. But the Roman citizens lost the strength 
that had made Rome great. They became rich 
and lazy, and many of them lived very evil 


LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 


49 


lives. Then the Empire was attacked by Ger¬ 
man and other tribes that rebelled against the 
rule of the Empire. The Romans could not 
drive them away. They captured and plundered 
Rome, and the great Empire crashed into ruin. 

That was a frightful time in the world’s 
history. The people were very poor, and they 
suffered terribly from disease, while thousands 
were killed in the wars that were going on all 
the time. Few people could read or write. 
Learning was kept alive only in the monasteries, 
where the monks lived. 

Now let us see what life was like in the Mid¬ 
dle Ages. At first, there were scarcely any 
cities. Nearly all the common people lived on 
little farms. There were no more real slaves, 
but the people who lived on these little farms 
were not much better off than if they had been 
slaves. They were known as serfs, which is 
almost the same as slaves, and they led very 
hard lives. When the land was sold to a new 
owner, the serfs went with it, just like cattle. 


Rome grew to be 
“the mistress of 
the world” 


What happened 
to Rome? 


How did people 
live in the 
Middle Ages? 


















50 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Who were 
the serfs? 


These serfs belonged to the land by reason 
of an agreement made between the small land 
holder and some powerful lord who lived near 
him. During the troublesome times after the 
breakdown of the Roman Empire, many pow¬ 
erful bands of outlaw warriors had roamed the 
land. Wherever they went they brought de¬ 
struction and robbery. The small land holders, 
in order to secure protection from these out¬ 
laws, swore allegiance to a more powerful 
lord. They promised to work so many days 
a year for him, as well as to serve him in time 
of war. In return for this, the lord promised 
to give them protection. These noblemen, in 
their turn, were sworn to give aid to the king 
of the country in time of war. This came to 
be known as the feudal system. 

Each noble and his family lived in a big 
house or castle. The district that he ruled was 
called a manor . The noble was the lord of the 
manor . 

But the serfs were not all farmers. There 


LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 


SI 


was a great deal of special work that had to be 
done at each manor. So some of the serfs were 
trained as shepherds, swineherds (who looked 
after pigs), blacksmiths (who made horseshoes 
and other things out of iron), carpenters, bak¬ 
ers, and so on. 

There was very little trade at first, because 
the roads were overrun by highwaymen, who 
robbed merchants and travelers. Each manor 
either raised or made nearly everything that 
was needed by the little group living round 
about. The man who looked after all the busi¬ 
ness in the great house or castle was the steward. 
He had many men working under him, doing 
special kinds of work. 

There were also large buildings in different 
parts of the country, called monasteries, where 
holy men known by the name of monks lived 
together. The head of a monastery was the 
abbot. Some of the larger monasteries were 
like manor houses. They had farms around 
them, on which lived serfs and their families. 


Was there 
much trade? 


52 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What were 
the people’s 
homes li\e? 


Most of the common people in those days 
were very poor. They lived in miserable huts, 
with dirt floors. Nobody, rich or poor, had 
many comforts like ours. Even in the great 
castles of the nobles there was straw instead of 
carpets on the floors, there were no bathrooms, 
and no hot water pipes. Water had to be carried 
in from a well. There were not even any stoves 
or furnaces. Great open fireplaces were used 
both for cooking food and for heating. 

War and sickness killed thousands. People 
knew little about keeping clean in those days. 
They did not know much about how to keep 
well, and they often drank dirty water. So 
diseases like typhoid fever and smallpox would 
sweep over the land. 

But life was not always sad and gloomy. 
There were many holidays, when everybody 
stopped work, went to church, and took part in 
festivities of different kinds. 

There were a few small towns here and there. 
They were built very strongly, with thick walls 


The landlord pro¬ 
tected the serfs 
with hired 
warriors 







LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 


53 


surrounded by moats—ditches filled with water. 

When an army of enemies came to attack the 
place, the people all hurried inside the walls. 

Then the bridge over the moat would be lifted 
up and nobody else could get in. 

As time went on, life became safer. There 
were fewer bandits on the roads. So trade be¬ 
gan to grow. Then the towns grew larger and 
larger. The people who lived in them were 
called burghers, which means townsmen. 

Here again, we find something that we have Was the wor\ 
seen happening in other places. That is, the dwtded U P ? 
division of labor. The work was divided up 
into all kinds of different trades, and there 
would be people who worked at just one kind 
of trade. Now in these towns of the Middle 
Ages the people who worked at the same trade 
thought it would be a good idea to join together. 

This union was called a guild. There were 
guilds of weavers, leather-workers, goldsmiths 
(persons who made beautiful things out of 
gold), carpenters, druggists, spice dealers, phy- 


54 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What did the 
guilds do? 


sicians, and notaries (who were like our 
lawyers). 

You would find these guilds in all the great 
countries of Europe, from Italy to England. 
The leaders of the guilds did good work in 
protecting the rights of their people. The 
guilds used to take in young boys and teach 
them how to become workmen. 

Then, too, the guilds taught the people how 
to rule themselves. For each guild managed 
its own affairs and elected officers to see that its 
rules were obeyed. 

During the Middle Ages the church played 
an important part in the lives of the people. 
For in those days everybody belonged to the 
same church. When you travel in Europe, 
you will see grand churches, called cathedrals, 
in every city. Many of these cathedrals were 
so large that they could hold thousands of 
people at one time. From all around the coun¬ 
tryside the people flocked in to worship together 
in the cathedral. These church buildings were 


LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 


55 


open every day, not just on Sunday, and their 
beautiful stained glass windows and carved 
altars taught the people to love beauty. 

Thus the church was very close to the people. 
It had charge of many matters, such as mar¬ 
riages, the care of the sick and of the poor, and 
education. There were schools and colleges 
where boys could become scholars at little cost. 

Even in the largest towns, people did not 
enjoy the comforts that we do today. The 
streets were narrow and muddy, and dark at 
night, because there were no street lights. And 
the towns were very unhealthy, because there 
were no sewers. And just like the people in the 
country, each family had to get its water out 
of a well—or a public fountain. 

Life during the Middle Ages was hard for 
everyone. But the people in those days had 
courage. They were trying, slowly but surely, 
to make the world better for those who should 
live after them. 


What were the 
cities li\e? 


Chapter V 


HOW THE MODERN WORLD WAS 
BORN 


Why was 
the invention 
of gunpowder 
important? 


I MPORTANT things happened at the end 
of the Middle Ages that changed the whole 
way of life for millions of people. 

First, gunpowder was introduced from 
China, so that man could shoot lead and iron 
balls out of guns and cannon. Big cannon balls 
could batter down the walls of the strongest 
castles and forts. Guns could kill the proud 
knights and nobles who wore armor and rode 
to battle on horseback. For now the common 
soldier, armed with a powerful gun called a 
musket, could do as much in battle as any other 
man. So the common people began to get into 
a better position to claim their rights. 

Then there was a great movement that swept 
over Europe, which we call the Renaissance, a 


56 


HOW THE MODERN WORLD WAS BORN 57 


name meaning rebirth. It was a new birth of 
art and the reading and writing of books. 
When many people became wealthy by means 
of trade, they had time for other things besides 
just getting a living. More and more people 
were learning to read and write. They found 
and began to read the books written by the 
great authors of Greece and Rome. These 
books had been forgotten by nearly everybody 
for hundreds of years. 

Now universities began to be built in many 
places, and thousands of young men flocked to 
them. More and more people wanted books 
to read. 

Copying books by hand was costly, and be¬ 
sides, it was very slow work. Then, too, they 
did not have paper. Books were written on 
polished skin called parchment, and that cost 
a great deal. After a while the making of 
paper from rags was introduced from the 
Arabs who learned it from the Chinese. Then 
came a man named Gutenberg, in Germany, 


What was 
the Renaissance? 


Were there hoo\s 
to read? 


58 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What did 
boo\s do for 
people? 


who invented a new way of making books, very 
cheaply, by printing them from type instead 
of copying them out by hand. Thousands of 
copies of a book could be printed in a short 
time, and then anybody who wanted a copy 
of that book could buy it for a small price. 

It was not long before printing presses were 
being set up all over Europe, and people were 
eagerly buying all the books that were printed. 
One of the first books printed was the Bible. 

Never before in the history of the world 
were so many people reading books. They were 
soon asking all kinds of questions. They 
wanted to know more about this earth that 
we live on. Nobody knew just how big the 
earth really was. Sailors began making long 
voyages and finding new lands. 

We all know the story of Christopher Colum¬ 
bus, the brave Italian sailor. He believed that 
the earth was round, not flat, as nearly every¬ 
body else used to think in those days. So he 
thought that by sailing westward he could reach 


HOW THE MODERN WORLD WAS BORN 59 


India and China by a new and cheaper route. 
He sailed from Spain with three little ships and 
a few brave men like himself. 

For two months Columbus sailed on and on 
over the broad ocean. Then one day he sighted 
land. It was not India or China, but a New 
World which the people of Europe did not 
know anything about. It was America. 

Then many other wonderful things began 
to happen. Other bold sailors sailed all the 
way around Africa and really did reach India 
and China. At last ships sailed around the 
world itself and came back to the place they 
started from. Trade grew as never before. 

But most people still led very hard lives. 
They had to work many hours daily just to 
get enough to live on, and they had few of the 
good things of life, because they cost so much. 

But certain wise men known as scientists were 
thinking of ways by which Nature could be 
made to work for man. 

There is a pretty 


James Watt watching 
a teakettle boil 


What made 
trade grow? 

















60 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


How did 
we get the 
steam engine? 


Scotland named James Watt. He was curious 
about things. One day, while in the kitchen 
of his home, he couldn’t help noticing the queer 
doings of the teakettle, which was hanging 
over the fire. Water was being heated in the 
kettle. When the water got so hot that it boiled, 
the lid of the kettle began jumping up and 
down, and every time it jumped up a cloud 
of steam escaped. 

That little boy began thinking hard. He 
thought and thought and thought. He began 
to wonder why the force that pushed up the lid 
of the teakettle could not be made to do work 
for man. So he made some little engines to 
see if he could “harness” the steam, just as you 
harness a horse when you want it to work for 
you. But of course it would have to be har¬ 
nessed in a different way, because the steam 
didn’t have a body and legs, like a horse. 

This story is interesting, but the steam engine 
was really used before Watt. He greatly im¬ 
proved it and made it turn wheels for factory 


HOW THE MODERN WORLD WAS BORN 61 


machines. The steam engine did such wonder¬ 
ful things that after a while it really made 
the world over. 

At first, the steam engines were used for 
pumping water out of coal mines. Then they 
were made to run machines for spinning yarn 
and weaving cloth. One person, tending such 
a machine, could make as much yarn or cloth 
in a day as hundreds of people working by 
hand had once made. 

Next came the steamboat and railway, when 
men made steam pull carriages on land and 
drive boats through the water. Sure enough, 
steam could do that, too. People then could 
travel ever so much faster than before. They 
did not have to depend upon horses, which 
were soon tired, to pull carriages along the 
roads. And they did not have to depend upon 
the wind, which often died down, to fill the 
sails of boats and push them along. Steam 
could make both carriages and boats move ever 
so much faster, and it never got tired or died 


What did 
steam power 
do for man? 


62 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What did 
factories do for 
the cities? 


down so long as you had a fire burning to keep 
the water hot and turn it into more steam. 

Before this time, the people who made goods 
used to do the work in their own homes. But 
machines driven by steam were too big and 
noisy to be put into houses where people lived. 
Large buildings called factories were made for 
them. These factories sprang up in towns and 
cities all over the country. 

There was a great need of workers to tend 
the machines in these big factories. Thousands 
of men and women from the farms and small 
towns came into the cities to get jobs. 

This made a new problem for man. Noth¬ 
ing like it had ever happened before in the 
world. People had had no chance to learn 
how to live in this new way. There were no 
laws to protect the health of the workers in the 
factories. Then, too, there were not enough 
houses for the workers to live in comfortably, 
and they could not afford to build new ones. So 
it was that, while many people became very 


HOW THE MODERN WORLD WAS BORN 63 


rich by selling the goods made in the factories, 
most of the workers themselves were very 
poor. They were crowded into old houses in 
dark streets near the factories. These streets 
came to be called slums . 

Nearly all of these poor people had to work 
for long hours at very low wages. There were 
no parks or playgrounds for the children, and 
not nearly enough schools for them. In fact, 
many of the children had to go to work in the 
factories when very young in order to earn their 
living. Poor orphan children sometimes were 
put to work in the factories, where many of 
them died. 

At last, wise and good citizens saw that it 
was dangerous to all the people to allow these 
terrible slums, because they were so dirty that 
they spread disease throughout the city. These 
citizens said, too, that working people and their 
families ought to be treated better. So laws 
were passed which made their day’s work 
shorter, and gave them cleaner places to work 


What problems 
came with 
the factories? 


64 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Are 

like 


all factories 
the old ones? 


in and live in. The children were given a 
chance to go to school. The workers themselves 
got together into groups called Trade Unions, 
in order to protect their rights still more. 

So today things are better than they were 
before. Many factories are pleasant places in 
which to work, and the workers live in pleasant 
homes. Some working people now have more 
comfortable homes than kings and nobles had 
in the Middle Ages, when there were no fur¬ 
naces, bathrooms, or carpets even in the king’s 
palace. Children are no longer allowed to go 
to work unless they have reached a certain age 
and have gone to school for a number of years. 
And in every city there are beautiful parks and 
playgrounds in which many can enjoy the fresh 
air and sunshine without cost, and so keep 
in good health. 



A boy gets a thrill 
when his team wins 







Chapter VI 


SOME OF THE GROUPS IN THE 
WORLD TODAY 

"VTEVER before have there been so many 
-L >1 groups of people as there are today. By 
a group, as we use the word here, we simply 
mean a number of persons who live together, 
or who have joined together to do something 
better than each one could do it alone. Often, 
of course, one person could not do at all what 
the group does. And groups are of all sizes, 
from very small to very large. 

First, of course, there is the family, which 
is the oldest group of all. We saw it first, you 
remember, far back in those early times when 
people lived in caves. There will be more to 
say about it in the family chapter. Then there 
is the neighborhood, which includes all the peo¬ 
ple who live quite near each other. Then there 


What is a 
a group? 


65 


66 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What do 
political 
groups do? 


are groups of people who go to the same church, 
or who work in the same factory or office, or 
who belong to the same club or society. 
Children who go to the same school make up 
another kind of group. 

Besides these, there are the groups that are 
called political, such as the town or city, the 
county, the state, and the nation. We could 
not get along in our everyday life without 
the many things that are done for us as mem¬ 
bers of political groups. 

Just think of what the city does for us; it gives 
us policemen to protect us from danger, it lights 
our streets at night, it puts out fires, it gives us 
drinking water, it sees to it that the milk is 
pure, it takes away our waste matter so that 
it will not cause sickness, it builds schoolhouses 
and libraries, parks and playgrounds. 

The county does other things for us, such as 
protecting our right to land that we own, taking 
care of the “wills” of people who die, and giving 
us courts and judges to enforce the laws. 


SOME GROUPS IN THE WORLD TODAY 67 


The state, too, helps us in many ways. For 
instance, it builds roads for our automobiles, 
it sends men around to see that the places where 
people work, such as factories, are light and 
clean, and it takes care of the people’s health. 

There are so many things that the nation 
does for the people that we cannot begin to men¬ 
tion all of them. Stop and think and see how 
many things you can remember that Uncle 
Sam does for us. He delivers our letters and 
many of our parcels. He looks over our meat 
at the stockyards to make sure that it is good 
to eat. He helps the farmers in raising their 
crops and fighting insects that would destroy 
them. He tells us what the weather is likely 
to be tomorrow. He builds lighthouses to pro¬ 
tect ships at sea. And he keeps the army and 
navy to defend the country. 

Millions of men and women have come from 
all over the world to this land, looking for a 
chance to make a better living for themselves 
and for their children. Many of them, or 


How does 
the nation 
help us? 


68 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Do we \now 
more about 
each other now? 


their children and grandchildren, are now our 
friends and neighbors. 

In the early days the people living in dif¬ 
ferent parts of the country saw very little of 
each other, for there were no railroads in those 
days, the roads were very bad, and it took weeks 
to go a distance that a fast train now carries 
one in a few hours. 

Then, too, in those early days most of the 
people were farmers. Most families lived on 
their own little farms, where almost every¬ 
thing that they needed was raised or made. 

Then came the days of railroads, steamboats, 
and all kinds of machinery. Of course, the 
towns grew much larger, so that now millions 
of people live in cities and large towns. And 
good roads, automobiles, and fast trains have 
made it very easy for people living in the coun¬ 
try to come into the city to make visits there. 
More and more, we are becoming better ac¬ 
quainted with each other. Millions of people 
every evening nowadays, both in the cities and 



In early times most men lived on their own little farms, 
raising or making everything they needed 


69 













70 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Does trade 
bring people 
together? 


on the farms, listen to the same music and 
talks over the radio. And a fast airplane can 
fly from New York to San Francisco in one 
day—a journey that once took months of dan¬ 
gerous travel. 

Trade and business also bind the people more 
and more closely together. Every part of this 
great country—and even other countries some¬ 
times—helps to supply each family with food, 
clothing, furniture, books, and all the other 
things that we need in our lives. 

Trade and business could not be carried on 
if people did not join together into groups, 
called companies and corporations, which give 
work to hundreds and thousands of people. 

And we must not forget other great national 
groups, with branches in different towns and 
cities through the country. For instance, there 
are trade unions. They are something like the 
guilds we talked about when we were looking 
at the Middle Ages. Men and women who 
work at different trades belong to these trade 


SOME GROUPS IN THE WORLD TODAY 71 


unions, or labor unions, as they are sometimes 
called. The people in the unions help each 
other in many ways. 

Then there are groups made up of business 
men, doctors, lawyers, and so on. These groups 
often hold big meetings, called conventions, 
in a different city every year. There the mem¬ 
bers from all over the country meet and get 
acquainted with each other and exchange ideas 
about their business. They help each other 
to do better work for the people. 

Besides these, there are other groups, such as 
the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, which 
help sick people and those who are very poor. 

Still other great national groups, with 
branches everywhere, are the political parties, 
such as the Republican party and the Demo¬ 
cratic party. By belonging to a political party 
and taking part in its work, citizens can help 
pick out good persons for office. 

In every town and city there are many groups 
besides those we have mentioned. A man may 


What are 
some of the 
other groups? 


72 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Are there 
groups for 
young people? 


belong to a group like the Masons, the Odd 
Fellows, or the Knights of Columbus, in which 
he meets other men in the spirit of brotherhood. 
These groups do a great deal of good work. 
And he may belong to a club of business men 
who meet together at luncheon downtown, 
such as Rotary, the Lions, or the Kiwanis. The 
members of these clubs also help their mem¬ 
bers to lead more useful lives. 

Of course, there are clubs for women, too. 
There are city clubs and neighborhood clubs, 
where the women talk over their problems and 
do things to make the city cleaner and more 
beautiful. 

And the boys and girls have their groups. 
They are members of classes in the schools they 
go to. And there are groups like the Boy Scouts 
and the Girl Scouts, where boys and girls have 
good times and learn many things that they 
will find very useful in their lives. 


Chapter VII 


THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND PLAY 

“I remember, I remember, 

The house where I was born, 

The little window where the sun 
Came peeping in at morn.” 

—Thomas Hood 

S INCE those days thousands of years ago 
when our forefathers huddled around fires 
in dark caves, the family has always been the 
very center of human life. 

At the very beginning, in fact, the family 
was the only group known. There were folk¬ 
ways and customs but no laws. A few families 
lived together in small groups. Each group 
had to get for itself all the food that it 
needed in order to keep alive. They scraped 
and dried the skins of animals for clothing, 
before cloth was used, and they wrought out 
of stone the weapons and tools used for hunting 


What is the 
center of life? 


73 


74 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Does the family 
do everything 
for itself? 


and other things that the family did. The 
father and mother taught the children. 

As the tribe grew larger there was more 
division of labor, as we have seen. Some men 
did farming, some hunted, some made arrows, 
canoes, or beads. 

In other words, people became more depend¬ 
ent upon others for getting many of the things 
that they needed in their daily lives. Each fam¬ 
ily came to have closer relations with other fam¬ 
ilies in the group. And thus trade grew up. 

Here again, the division of labor did not go 
on at the same speed everywhere in the world. 
Some tribes lagged behind others. Today, 
among the different peoples of the earth we can 
find all sorts of stages in the division of labor. 
In some tribes it still has not gone very far. 

You will remember what we said about 
tribal custom and taboo. And there were 
medicine-men who thought that they could 
bring good luck by doing queer things and 
so getting what they wanted by magic. 


THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND PLAY 75 


We saw what interesting marriage customs 
they used to have in those old tribes. They 
thought of marriage as a serious matter, be¬ 
cause it meant the starting of a new family. 

The family was very closely bound together. 
In some tribes it was even responsible for the 
way that all its members acted. If someone in 
the tribe did wrong, his whole family might 
be punished. 

Of course, as we have been seeing, great 
changes have taken place, since those early 
times, in the way people live. But all over 
the world, and in all times, the family has 
gone on, for people could not get along without 
it. In some tribes and in certain countries, 
down to the present time, a man might have 
more than one wife. That was called polyg¬ 
amy . But there was not such a strong bond 
of love and helpfulness in a family of that kind 
as there was when each man had only one wife 
and they worked together to bring up their 
children well. 


Why has the 
family gone on? 


76 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Was the family 
important in 
America? 


It was the family that built up our own great 
country. When America was first settled, the 
wilderness had to be conquered. This could 
not have been done by persons working all 
alone. The reason that men and women came 
to America in the early days was to make 
homes in the new land, where their children 
would have better chances in life than their 
parents had had in the old country. 

They came here usually in family groups. 
The first thing that each group did, after 
landing in the new country, was to pick out 
a piece of land in the wilderness. Then the 
father and the older boys chopped down the 
trees, built a log cabin, and planted the first 
crops. They shot birds and animals and caught 
fish for food. The mother and the older girls 
cooked the meals, spun the yarn from wool 
grown on the backs of sheep, and then wove 
the yarn into warm clothing for all the family. 
They tended the live-stock, milked the cows, 
and made butter and cheese. 


THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND PLAY 77 


Quite often the members of the family had 
to take down guns from the rack and fight 
off attacks of warring Indians. 

After the eastern part of the country had 
been settled, many young couples began going 
out across the plains into the great West. 
There they, too, built homes, fought off the 
Indians, and made the wilderness into fine, 
rich farms. So the whole country at last was 
settled by families, and a great nation was born. 

Now you can see that if each person had 
been working selfishly for himself, the country 
could not have been settled at all. Everybody 
probably would have starved or been killed by 
the Indians. It was only by all working together 
in each family that they got along so well. 

At first, these families were few and far 
between. As there were no railroads, steam¬ 
ships, or automobiles, and the roads were bad, 
the family had to raise or make at home nearly 
everything it needed. But it might get a few 
things from outside, especially from peddlers 


The families went 
out into the 
great West 


What built 
up our nation ? 







78 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


How did families 
meet? 


who wandered from farm to farm with packs 
on their backs. 

But even in those hard times the different 
families saw something of each other. Dotted 
over the country there were churches. To 
these churches the people came in from the 
farms round about on Sundays to hear sermons. 
And there were little schoolhouses here and 
there to which the children came in winter, 
when there was less work to do on the farm. 
Gradually, as better roads were built, towns 
began to spring up. 

Today we live in a great nation. It is made 
up of countless families. We simply could not 
get along without the little group known as 
the family. For when a baby is born into the 
world, it must be taken care of by somebody 
who loves it and wants to bring it up. A 
child would be lost without the care of some¬ 
body during the years when it cannot get its 
own food. If a little child’s parents die, other 
kind people must be found to take their place. 


THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND PLAY 79 


We do not have so many children in most 
families now, because there is not room for 
so many and it costs a great deal more to bring 
them up. On the farm there was usually 
plenty of open space and room for the children 
to play. But today millions of families live 
in cities, where land is very dear. Many homes 
are in flats and apartments, and there is not 
much room for the children to play in. So 
they have to go away to other places, to the 
parks and playgrounds and beaches, to find 
room for playing. In city homes people do 
not make butter and cheese, spin yarn, weave 
cloth, or make clothing. And they cannot keep 
animals, except perhaps a cat or a dog. 

City children do not see so much of their 
parents nowadays, because usually the father 
works away from home, in a factory or office, 
and does not get back until night. But we 
now have fine large schoolhouses, with light, 
airy, pleasant rooms, where children go to 
school all through the year except during the 


Are families 
as large now? 


80 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Where do 
they live? 


hot summer months. They spend more hours 
of each day in school, and they go to school for 
many more years than children used to in the 
old days on the farm when they had to begin 
earning their own living at a very early age. 

Many more families today live in towns and 
cities than ever before, and they see and know 
more people. Even those who live on farms 
have swift automobiles that can take the whole 
family to a near-by town or city in a short time. 

In the towns and cities there are so many 
interesting places to go to and things to do 
that people do not stay at home nearly so much 
as they used to. In the evening the parents 
may go out to a concert or to the theater or to 
a meeting of some club, and the children may 
go to the neighborhood movie or to Boy Scout 
or Girl Scout meetings or to parties. 

Still, in spite of all these things outside, 
everybody wants to have a place to call home, 
where those who are near and dear to each 
other can come together after the day’s work 


THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND PLAY 81 


and play, where they can spend the time when 
they do not have to be somewhere else, and 
where they can sleep during the night. 

Though the members of the family nowadays 
are interested in more things outside of the 
home than they were before, and though there 
are more things that must be done outside, the 
family tie we are sure is just as strong as ever. 
Parents love their children and children love 
their parents just as they did hundreds of years 
ago. Today, children have to spend more years 
in school in order to get the proper training 
for their life-work; parents plan for their chil¬ 
dren’s future and often save money to enable 
them to get the education that is required. 

There is another reason why the home means 
so much in this business of living in a world 
so full of people. Though our schools today 
are better than any there ever were before, and 
though education is free to all, it is in the home 
that every child must begin to learn things. 
There every one learns the right way to live. 


Is the family 
just as important 
now? 


82 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What 
in the 


is taught 
family? 



Some of these things that every child must 
first learn at home are: not to tell lies, to be 
fair and square with others, not to cheat, to be 
polite, to be kind to those who need help and 
even to animals, to be very respectful to old 
people, and not to be selfish. It is at home 
that we all must first get our lessons in “playing 
the game of life.” 

One of the great differences between the 
times in which we live and the times of long 
ago is the fact that today every child can attend 
a good school, without having to pay money. 
At school the child learns many other things 
to help him get the most out of life. 

Did you ever stop to think what a fine thing 
it is that every child can go to school? Once 
upon a time schools were only for rich children. 
So most of the people in every country could 
not read or write, and when they wanted to 
sign their names they had to make a little mark 
like this: X. 

How different life would be to us if we could 


Family love is the 
guiding force 
of the nation 




THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND PLAY 83 


not read or write, so that we could never know 
what the newspapers were saying or what books 
can tell us! 

But there is another reason why, in a country 
like ours, people must know how to read and 
write so as to understand what is happening. 
Our country is ruled by the people, through 
the persons that they pick out to make the laws 
and govern the nation. All our rulers, from 
the mayor of the city where we live, to the 
President of the United States, are elected by 
the people themselves. 

In order to choose good and wise men to 
rule the country, we must know a great deal. 
We must study the problems of our city, our 
state, and our country, and then we must pick 
out the persons who we think will be best able 
to settle these problems and make good laws. 
So all our boys and girls must get the best 
possible education in order to help rule the 
country when they grow up and become 
citizens. And some of them will be the ones 


Why should 
people learn 
to read and 
write? 


84 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Who pays 
for schools? 


that the others pick out to be mayors and 
governors and even presidents. 

Of course, all parents could not afford to 
pay for sending their children to school. So 
people owning property are taxed—made to 
give money—to build schoolhouses, to buy 
books for the pupils, and to pay the teachers. 

Usually boys and girls must go to school 
until they are at least sixteen years old. Many 
of them go to high school. And there are 
colleges and universities where boys and girls 
may go on to higher studies. 

There are also free evening schools for those 
who have to go to work early, and for grown-up 
people who want to learn more things than 
they could when they were young. Many 
public schools teach trades by which boys and 
girls can earn a good living. 

It is an old saying that “all work and no 
play makes Jack a dull boy.” That is true 
when the work that Jack does is going to school 
and studying his lessons. Every child must 


THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND PLAY 85 


also have a chance for plenty of good health¬ 
making play. 

Children always have wanted to play. We 
saw how in those ancient tribes the children 
had their games in which they learned skill 
in the doing of things that they would want 
to do when they grew up. That is one of the 
reasons for play. 

There are other reasons, too, why play is not 
just wasting time, unless one does too much 
of it. All children need exercise, and the right 
kind of play helps them to build up strong 
bodies, so that they can do their part of the 
world’s work when they grow up and become 
fathers and mothers. Also, it gives them 
lessons in how to “play the game” with people 
outside of the family; that is, how to act fair 
and square with others. 

When a boy plays on a baseball team, he 
must forget about himself as much as he can 
and work with all the other members of the 
team, so that it may win a victory. If each 


Is playing 
wasting time? 


86 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What good 
are games? 


boy thought only about getting something for 
himself, then the team would never win. So 
it is in life, in the groups of which grown-up 
people are members. We have to work with 
others for the good of the group. 

As we said before, all children naturally like 
to play. As soon as a child is old enough to 
run around he wants to play. If he has not 
been taught any games he will make up some. 
We all know how much fun a little boy can 
get out of a few blocks, or a little girl out of 
a rag doll. Playing alone is better than not 
playing at all. But it is not nearly so good as 
playing with others, and the more the better. 
So children should have playmates—other boys 
and girls of their own age to play with. 

Then they can play real games, with ever 
so much more fun, because in playing with 
others you have to keep your eyes and ears 
wide open all the time, and to watch sharply 
what the others are doing, so as to know what 
to do yourself and the right time to do it. 


THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND PLAY 87 


A boy always gets a great thrill when his 
team wins a hard-fought game, and he knows 
that he has helped the team to win. When he 
has played his part well, then all the others on 
the team will praise him and will be proud 
of him, and that will make him very happy. 

Nowadays, children have more time and a 
better chance to play than they ever did before. 
It is easier for children of the same age to get 
together for play. In our towns and cities, 
where so many thousands of children live, there 
are fine parks and playgrounds and swimming 
pools or beaches open to all children who want 
to play there. 

Even grown-up people like to play, because 
play refreshes tired minds and bodies and 
makes people better fitted to go back to work. 
Of course, grown-up people do not play the 
same games that children do, because they 
cannot run so fast and their bodies get tired 
more easily. But they can play games like 
tennis, golf, bowling, and billiards, and they 


Teamwor\ teaches 
us to play our 
parts well 


Are there many 
chances to play? 










88 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What has play 
to do with 
bad habits? 


like to watch younger people play baseball, 
football, basketball, and other games. 

It is another old saying that idle hands soon 
get into mischief. If boys and girls do not 
have a chance for the right kind of play, they 
are likely to get into bad habits when they 
have nothing else to do. We shall see later 
how boys sometimes join gangs and sometimes 
disobey the laws, so that they have to be 
punished. A boy who learns to play clean, 
health-building games in his spare time is less 
likely to get into trouble. 

Any boy, if he has plenty of the right kind 
of play, especially on teams with other boys, 
will not so easily fall into bad habits, for he 
will see how much better it is to lead a clean 
life and have everybody his friend. He will 
be very much happier, both when a boy and 
when he grows up, for he will have started on 
the road to real success in life. 

It is in these bright years of childhood that 
we learn how to “play the game” as it must 


THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND PLAY 89 


be played by us later in the great world of 
grown-ups. Much of success that we win when 
we become men and women comes from 
knowing how to “play the game.” 

And so play is just as important as going 
to school. Our schools now have playgrounds 
for the children, where during recess and after 
school hours they may have fun in playing 
games. The boys and girls in our high schools 
and colleges get together into teams and play 
many thrilling games. 

So study and play go hand in hand, because 
both of them help boys and girls to build up 
for themselves that which everyone should have 
who wants to live a happy and worth-while 
life: that is, a sound mind in a healthy body. 

“This is the word that year by year, 

While in her place the School is set, 

Every one of her sons must hear, 

And none that hears it dares forget. 

This they all with a joyful mind 
Bear through life like a torch of flame, 

And falling, fling to the host behind— 

‘Play up! Play up! And play the game!* ” 

—Sir Henry Newbolt 


Do study and 
play go together? 


Chapter VIII 


Have there 
always been laws? 


HOW THE PEOPLE MAKE THEIR 
OWN LAWS 

G OVERNMENT did not exist in the tribe 
as it does in our country today. There 
were no written or printed laws. There were 
no courts or policemen, either. Customs and 
taboos, handed down from the forefathers of 
the tribe, took the place of laws. 

You can see how unnecessary it would be for 
a family to have policemen to make its mem¬ 
bers behave themselves. 

But when the tribe grew into a nation, the 
people become much more numerous. They 
no longer thought of themselves as being blood 
relatives, all belonging to one and the same 
family. So it was necessary to work out a 
different way of governing the nation, and to 
have rules to make clear the rights and duties 


90 


HOW THE PEOPLE MAKE OWN LAWS 91 


of everybody. Then, too, as people became 
more civilized, there were more disputes that 
had to be settled. The land no longer belonged 
to everybody in common. Each separate person 
had many things that belonged to him alone, 
and he wanted his rights protected. So laws 
were written; laws that everybody had to obey. 

But the kind of government was not the 
same everywhere. Nations such as Egypt had 
kings. The king ruled the country. He made 
the laws. 

Some of these kings were good men; others 
were cruel. They could do just as they pleased. 
There were many good laws for settling dis¬ 
putes among the people, but the people had 
no rights against the king. 

In ancient Greece, as we saw when we 
looked at that country, the land was divided 
among a number of cities, each of which ruled 
itself. All the free citizens met together and 
made the laws, and they elected certain men 
to see that the laws were obeyed. 


Who made 
the laws? 


92 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What did 
laws do for 
the Romans? 


We have also read about that wonderful city 
in Italy called Rome. There, as well as in 
Greece, the citizens had much more freedom 
than the people who lived in kingdoms. But 
many were slaves and had very few rights. 

The Romans made many good laws. When 
Rome became “the mistress of the world,” her 
laws were so fair that millions of people in 
the great empire could live together peacefully. 

The Roman Empire fell. The Middle Ages 
brought trouble and strife, but at last new 
nations began to grow up in Europe. The one 
that we want to know about is England, because 
the forefathers of most of us Americans came 
from there. 

In those days, kings ruled in Europe and 
made the laws giving the common people few 
rights. 

At this time a new people came into England, 
called Anglo-Saxons . They had several little 
kingdoms in England, which later joined to¬ 
gether. Then in the year 1066 , a people called 


HOW THE PEOPLE MAKE OWN LAWS 93 


the Normans came into England from France, 
led by a man named William. 

The Normans conquered England. They 
spoke the French language. After a long time 
this mingled with the Anglo-Saxon tongue, 
and so made the English language. 

Besides the king, there were many great 
nobles, who lived in castles scattered over the 
country. The king was the ruler of the land, 
and the people often had to bear great wrongs. 
But the English nobles quarreled with the king 
and forced him to give them more rights. He 
had to sign a paper giving them more rights. 
It was called the Great Charter. 

In the meantime, an assembly of men called 
Parliament was gaining more power. It was 
something like our Congress. This Parliament 
came to share with the king the power to make 
laws for the country. For hundreds of years 
Parliament struggled, and more and more the 
people won the right to make the laws through 
the men that they sent to sit in Parliament. 


What was the 
beginning of the 
English language? 


94 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


How did the 
United States 
begin? 



This was called the fight for self-government. 

That was how matters stood when little 
groups of people began sailing to America to 
make their homes in the New World. They 
did not like the laws of England. In America 
they came to have more control over their own 
affairs. So they set up, in the new country, 
little colonies, each of which had an assembly 
or Parliament of its own which made some of 
the laws for the colony. 

By the year 1776 there were thirteen of 
these English colonies in North America. 
When the Parliament of England tried to tax 
the colonists unjustly, they would not pay the 
taxes. So in that year they drew up a paper 
called the Declaration of Independence, in 
which they said that they were now a free 
nation—The United States of America. 

The Americans, led by a great and noble 
general named George Washington, had to 
fight a long war called the Revolution. They 
suffered terrible hardships but won many great 


Parliament won the 
fight for self- 
government 






HOW THE PEOPLE MAKE OWN LAWS 95 


victories. Finally, the king and Parliament of 
England agreed to make peace, and the United 
States took its place among the world nations. 

A few years later, a number of men from 
the different States gathered together in Phila¬ 
delphia. After talking matters over for a long 
time, these men, who were very wise, wrote out 
a set of rules called the Constitution. 

The new nation, they said, should be a 
republic, made up of the different States. The 
people of each State were allowed to rule 
themselves in most matters, but they also were 
to send men to a great central body called 
Congress. This Congress was to make the 
laws needed by the nation as a whole. The 
Constitution also said that there should be a 
man at the head of the nation, called the Presi¬ 
dent, who should see that the laws were obeyed. 
Then, too, they decided that there should be 
a Supreme Court for the settling of serious 
disputes and to tell just what the Constitution 
means and to explain new laws. 


Who ma\es 
our laws? 


96 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What do the 
states do? 


Each city, through its mayor and city coun¬ 
cil, makes certain laws that are in force only 
in the city. Among these there are laws saying 
how houses shall be built so that they will be 
safe and not likely to catch fire, and laws about 
driving cars in the streets, to prevent people 
from being killed. There are policemen to see 
that the laws are obeyed. 

Then in each State there is a body of men 
called the Legislature, which makes laws for 
the whole State, such as laws for the payment 
of taxes (to get money to pay the cost of gov¬ 
ernment), the building of roads, and keeping 
the people in good health. The man at the 
head of the State is called the Governor. The 
State courts settle disputes between people in 
the State and make clear what the laws mean. 

All of our very important laws are either 
State laws or Federal (national) laws. They 
are made in very nearly the same way. As 
the State is closer to us, let us see how a law is 
made in the State in which we live. 


HOW THE PEOPLE MAKE OWN LAWS 97 


Suppose the citizens of a town think it 
would be a fine thing to have a good, wide 
road built to connect their town with other 
towns in the State, so that everybody can drive 
to those towns more quickly and easily. 

First, they will talk the matter over among 
themselves. Then they will go to see the man 
who represents them in the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives, which is one of the two branches of 
the State Legislature. They tell him all about 
the reasons why this road should be built. If 
he thinks it is a good plan, then a man called 
a lawyer, who knows how laws should be 
written, is called in and asked to put the plan 
in the form of a bill. A bill is a written form 
of the law the citizen thinks should be made. 

Every law must also be passed by another 
group in the Legislature, called the Senate. 
Thus the people who want to have this law 
made will want to talk it over with the man 
in the Senate who has been elected from the 
district in which they have their homes. 


How does 
a law start? 


98 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What does a 
committee do? 


Then, when the Legislature meets, the bill 
which tells about the law these people want 
will be given to the law-makers. It must be 
brought to them early, to be sure of passing. 

Next, we will see what happens to the bill 
when it is brought to the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives. First, the title of the bill—that is, 
the heading of it, which tells what it is about 
—is read to the whole group of law-makers. 
The bill is given a number, and some copies 
of it are printed. That is the first reading. 

Now the House is divided into smaller 
groups called committees. Each committee 
studies all the bills on a certain subject, such as 
new roads. So this bill is sent to the committee 
that knows about the need of roads, the cost 
of building them, and so on. 

If the committee finally makes up its mind 
that the bill is a good one, it sends the bill 
back to the House of Representatives, saying 
that it thinks such a law should be passed. 
But if the committee, after going carefully into 



When the Legislature meets, the bill the people want 
as a law will be given to the law-makers 


99 













































100 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


How are bills 
changed? 


the matter, feels that this bill should not be 
made into a law it takes no action in the matter, 
and the bill is said to be “dead.” 

We will suppose that the committee sends 
the bill back to the House, saying that they 
think the bill should be passed. Then a time 
is set for a second reading by the law-makers. 
When the day comes for this second reading, 
a man called the clerk reads aloud the number 
and title of the bill in the meeting-room of the 
House. In the meantime, the law-makers have 
been studying the printed copies of the bill, 
so that when the matter comes up in the 
House they can discuss it with each other. 
Certain changes may then be made in the bill. 

Then the law-makers take the bill and study 
it some more until it comes up again in the 
House for the third and last reading. At 
that time the House finally decides, by each 
man voting “Yes” or “No,” whether to make 
the bill a law or not. If a majority (more than 
half) of the law-makers vote for the bill, it is 


HOW THE PEOPLE MAKE OWN LAWS 101 


said to be “passed”; but if a majority vote 
against it, then the bill is said to be “lost,” and 
it cannot become a law. 

Supposing that the bill is passed, let us see 
what happens next, for it is not yet a law. A 
man called the Speaker of the House signs the 
bill and it is sent to the Senate. 

As we noticed, a copy of the same bill was 
brought to the Senate at the same time that a 
copy was brought to the House. In the Sen¬ 
ate the very same thing happens to the bill 
that happened in the House. It was sent to 
a committee, and the law-makers in the Senate 
studied it and made speeches about it. Probably 
they, just as did the House, made some changes 
in it. Then, if a majority of the Senate law¬ 
makers voted for the bill, the officer called the 
Speaker or President of the Senate signed the 
bill and sent it to the House. 

So now the Senate has a copy of the bill as 
passed by the House, and the House has a 
copy of the bill as passed by the Senate. Per- 


What does the 
Senate do? 


102 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


How docs 
the bill become 
a law? 


haps each group of law-makers has made 
different changes in it. If so, the matter is 
turned over to a committee made up of mem¬ 
bers of both the House and the Senate, who 
talk the matter over and decide how they can 
put the bill into such shape that it will please 
all the law-makers. 

When they have done so, the bill goes back 
to the House and to the Senate, and if they 
are satisfied with it now, they give their consent 
by voting again. After that, the bill is sent to 
the Governor of the State. If he thinks that 
such a law is a good one, he signs the bill and 
says that it shall now be a law. Then it will 
be turned over to the men who have charge 
of the building of roads, and soon the road will 
be built. The cost will be taken care of by 
money which the people have paid as taxes. 

Of course, it might happen that the Gov¬ 
ernor, after studying the bill, does not think 
that it should be made a law. Then he does 
not sign it. We say that he “vetoes” the bill. 


HOW THE PEOPLE MAKE OWN LAWS 103 


Does that end the matter? No, the law¬ 
makers study and talk about the bill some more. 
If they are still so sure that it ought to become 
a law that two-thirds of those in the House 
and two-thirds of those in the Senate vote for 
it, then the bill does become a law. Even the 
Governor cannot stop the people from making 
a law if they are very sure that such a law is 
wanted and that they are determined to have it. 

Still, it is wise to give the Governor the 
right to “veto” a law. It prevents the law¬ 
makers from being careless and making laws 
that they should not make, for they know that 
the Governor will not sign a law if he thinks 
it is not a good one. Perhaps in some cases 
the Governor may simply say that some 
further changes should be made in the new 
law, and that if this is done he will sign it. 

So that is the way that the people make 
their laws in each State. And in our city gov¬ 
ernment and in our national government the 
people make their laws in about the same way. 


What is a 
veto? 


104 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Are all laws 
made the same 
way? 


Now, if the law-makers should happen to 
make a law that is against some rule in the 
Constitution, and even if the Governor signs 
it, then the Supreme Court may say that it is 
against the Constitution and that it shall not 
be put in force. 

All other great nations like ours make their 
laws in very much the same way. For in¬ 
stance, even though England still has a king, 
it is the people who really make the laws, 
through the men that they send to Parliament. 

It took many centuries and a very long 
struggle for the people to win the right to 
make their own laws, instead of being forced 
to obey laws that were made by a king or 
emperor to suit himself. 

People cannot live together happily unless 
they have good laws. So we must select law¬ 
makers who are wise men and who will see 
to it that the laws that are made are good ones. 


Chapter IX 


OTHER RULES THAT TELL US HOW 
TO ACT 


1 AWS of many kinds tell people what they 
■^should do and what they should not do. 
Some of these laws have been in force, almost 
all over the world, for hundreds of years, be¬ 
cause without them no one’s life or things that 
he owns would be safe. 

If a person does something that the law says 
he should not do, then he is punished for it. 

But besides laws, there are a great many 
things called social forces. These are influences 
which have a lot to do with the way we behave 
in our daily life. Some of them are (i) re¬ 
ligion and conscience, (2) education, (3) 
custom, (4) fashion, and (5) public opinion. 

Religion tells the people who 
churches or who were brought up 


Religion is one of 
the social forces 


Are laws 
the only rules 
we have? 


















106 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What are 
customs? 


when children, what acts are pleasing to God 
and what acts are not. A person may not do 
a certain thing that is wrong because he be¬ 
lieves that God will be sorry or may even 
punish him; or he may want to do something 
else because he believes that it will please God. 

Conscience is very much like religion. It is 
the feeling we have within us which tells us 
when we have done wrong and makes us feel 
ashamed of ourselves. 

Education, too, helps to tell us how we 
should behave. It makes us want to live in a 
spirit of good-will and helpfulness to others. 
A well educated person should know how 
foolish it is to do things which sooner or later 
will cause trouble to himself as well as to 
others. 

Customs are the ways that people have been 
in the habit of acting for a long time. We do 
many things because it is the custom to do 
them, and we keep from doing other things 
because it is not the custom to do them. 


OTHER RULES 


107 


For instance, it is a custom that men should 
do everything they can to protect women and 
children when necessary; it is a custom that 
we should show respect to old people; and it 
is a custom that a gentleman should lift his 
hat when he meets a lady on the street. Some 
customs, of course, are much more important 
than others. 

Very much like custom is that which we 
call fashion . A fashion is a new custom. If 
it lasts a long time, then it may become a 
custom. But most fashions quickly disappear 
after people get tired of them. 

A fashion is simply something that we want 
to do because other people are doing it. A 
certain kind of hat is “all the style” one year, 
but the next year nobody wants to wear a hat 
of that kind. 

The reason that customs and fashions have 
so strong a hold upon people is that a person 
likes to do what others whom he admires are 
doing. If he does not then the people with 


What are 
fashions? 


108 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What is public 
opinion? 


whom he lives think he is a little bit “queer,” 
and very few persons want that to happen. 

Then there is public opinion. That is a very 
strong force in making us act in certain ways. 
Everybody likes to be praised or thought well 
of by others. If a person tells lies and cheats, 
then all those who know him will say un¬ 
pleasant things about him. But if he is fair 
and honorable in all that he says and does, his 
neighbors will like him. 


“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, 

Is the immediate jewel of their souls: 

Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; 
’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; 

But he that filches from me my good name 
Robs me of that which not enriches him, 

And makes me poor indeed.” 

—Shakespeare 


Chapter X 


WHAT THE CROWD AND THE 
GROUP DO TO US 

S TRANGE as it may seem, when people 
come together in a crowd they are apt to 
act quite differently from the way they do 
when any one of them is alone. If you have 
been to a football game in one of the great 
stadiums, or to a baseball game between teams 
of two major leagues, you will remember how 
the people in the stands, sometimes quite elderly 
persons, jumped up from their seats, stamped 
their feet, waved their hats, cheered, and 
shouted. 

If a person were all alone, he would not be 
likely to act like that. In fact, a crowd will 
often act in a way that the persons in it are 
ashamed of afterwards. 

So we ask, why do people when together in 


How do 
crowds act? 


109 




110 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


Why 
act as 


do crowds 
they do? 


crowds behave the way they do? The answer 
is, in the first place, because the people who 
make up the crowd sometimes forget them¬ 
selves. They are just a part of the crowd, which 
acts as it pleases. Sometimes a crowd, when it 
is an angry mob, will do dreadful things. 

A crowd in action really does not think; we 
say that it acts on its feelings. It has a sense 
of great power. And a person in a crowd 
knows that he will not be blamed for what the 
whole crowd does. So he often does things 
that he would never dream of doing if he were 
alone and had to answer for what he did. 

But what makes a crowd want to do things? 
We say it is suggestion . One or more persons 
in the crowd begin to do something, and this 
spreads like wildfire if the rest of the crowd 
has the same feelings. Then the thing is done, 
unless a different suggestion gets started. 

Sometimes a crowd may do good things, like 
helping to put out a great fire or saving people 
who are in danger. 



Group influence 
can do great 
good 



WHAT CROWD AND GROUP DO TO US 111 

In listening to a fine speaker a crowd will 
often get so excited that it will believe any¬ 
thing the man says, or will do anything he 
wants it to do. If the speaker is an evil man, 
and the crowd hates some one, he may make 
the crowd do something harmful. 

Another kind of crowd that behaves in very what 
evil ways is the gang. We read and hear a & an 8 ? 
great deal about the trouble caused by gangs in 
every large city. A gang is a group of boys or 
men who may only disturb people, or may com¬ 
mit crimes. A gangster is often an enemy of the 
city. Many a gangster ends up in prison; or, if 
he has killed somebody, he may be put to death. 

Let us remember that people who come to¬ 
gether into a group influence each other very 
deeply. It is true of boys and girls. For in¬ 
stance, when a boy joins the Boy Scouts, he 
knows that he should live up to the Boy Scout 
rules of honor and manliness. 

We see the same thing in schools and col¬ 
leges. Boys and girls are proud of the school 


112 


HOW THE WORLD LIVES 


What is 
patriotism? 


or the college that they attend. They catch the 
spirit of the place, and they want to add glory 
to its name. 

So, too, all of us as citizens want to hold 
high the honor of our city and of our country. 
We do not want to disgrace either of them. 
We try to set an example to each other as good 
citizens. 

This feeling of loyalty to the group of which 
we are a part we call group pride . Our love for 
our city we call civic pride. And our love for 
our country we call patriotism. Readiness to 
do things for our group we call morale . 

When the people of all the different countries 
get to know each other better, they will be 
proud that they all belong to the great group 
called mankind. Then nations will see that it 
is a mistake to quarrel and make war. They 
will want to help each other. In that way 
each one will best help itself. And each nation, 
by doing well its share of the world’s work, 
will be honored by all the others. 





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